The use of the term ‘Service’ is somewhat overloaded. Everyone
will have heard or used the terms Business Services, IT Services, Software
Services, and now Cloud Services, and yet often there is much confusion and misunderstanding
in their use.
As my colleague David Sprott suggested in a CBDI
Journal Report, “Everything is a Service” . In that report David suggested
that the idea that “everything is a service” could be developed to clarify the
taxonomy for Cloud Services and Services in the form of a Unified Service Model
that would deliver convergence of business and IT perspectives.
Consequently, I have penned a research note available on Everware-CBDI site , that provides a concept model that explores the basic concepts
of Service and Service-Orientation taking into account this broad perspective
including Business Service, IT Services, Software Services, Cloud Services and
even Human Services
What is a Service?
Readers
will be familiar with the basic concept of a Service. That is, where someone or something provides
a Service to another.
The
notion that someone or something offers a Service to another introduces the
concept of the Service Provider and Service Consumer as illustrated in Figure
1.
A
Service Provider is as its name suggests is someone or something that provides
a Service.
And
the Service Consumer is someone or something that consumes or uses the Service.
Real
World Example: A logistics company provides a Goods Delivery Service. This is
used by a manufacturer to ship goods to its clients.
The
logistics company is the Service Provider.
The manufacturer is the Service Consumer.
Figure 1 Service Consumers and Providers
Capability
The reason a Service Provider is able to provide the Service is because
they possess the Capability required to do so.
A
Capability is the power or ability to perform some function.
We may
think of a person, an organization or something (a machine, or some technology)
as having the Capability to perform some function.
In
turn the Service Provider may offer their Capability to others, in the form of
a Service.
Meanwhile,
a Service Consumer is someone or something that requires the Capability.
Hence
we may understand a Service as a Capability offered by a Service Provider to a
Service Consumer
Real World Example: A logistics company has the Capability to deliver goods. Therefore it is able to offer a Goods Delivery Service to others.
Figure 2 Service and Capability
Types of Service
In the
real world example used so far, a logistics company provides a Goods Delivery
Service to a manufacturer.
This
may be referred to as a Business Service,
as it reflects the nature of the activity - where one business is providing its
services to another. It is also normally offered on a commercial basis, and may
be considered as a Business Service because business is being transacted
through its use.
We can
think of Business Service as a
particular type of Service.
Other
types of Service commonly used in an IT context are,
·
IT Service, where the IT department (or 3rd
party) provide a service to the business
·
Software Service, where a unit of software provides
a service to another software unit
·
Cloud Service, where a Software Service is
provided over a network and conforms to cloud computing principles
We can
even consider a Human Service where
one person provides services to another and relies upon human resources to provide
the required Capability.
Regardless
of the type of Service, the concepts discussed so far still hold true.
Whether
it is a Business Service, an IT Service or a Software Service, Cloud Service,
or a Human Service, they still all provide a Capability, and are all provided
by a Service Provider and used by a Service Consumer.
Figure 3 - Types of Service showing
different forms of Service Provider and Consumer
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